Warehouse Management System Market Report, published by Allied Market Research, forecasts that the global market size is expected to garner $3,112 million by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 15.2% during the period 2016-2022. This can be attributed to the increase in inventory and workload of WMS in warehouse operations. Europe is expected to be the largest market during the forecast period.

By component type, software held the highest marketsharein2015, and services is anticipated to show the highest growth rate. Among the various industry verticals, transportation & logistics is projected to dominate the market. However, pharmaceuticals industry is expected to have the fastest growth rate.

Asia-Pacific is estimated to grow fastest due to increase in the adoption of WMS services and extensive growth in Japan, China, Australia, and India.

Improved supplier and customer relationships
WMS reduces the delivery lead times and errors while processing the orders. The suppliers seek greater efficiency and productivity while implementing WMS, which strengthens the supplier‐customer relationships, and is a notable driver for the WMS market. The impact of this factor was remarkable during 2015, and is projected to significantly rise over the forecast period.

Costly deployment of WMS solutions

Inherent challenges associated with implementation of the distribution software such as lack of process standardization in distribution, less business savvy users, high rate of simultaneous active transactions, materials handling interface requirements, and other factors result in resource monopolization, cost overruns, and operational disruption risks. Smaller facilities with lower headcounts find WMS solutions too expensive to deploy. Many such firms rely on memory-based processes, antiquated systems, and paper-based warehouse operations. In the year 2015, the impact of this factor was prominent; however, due to technological advancements, this impact is predicted to decline over the forecast period.

Emergence of SaaS-based on-demand WMS solutions
The smaller firms and other companies seek for less capital investments and greater flexibility. The on-demand supply chain execution is expected to gain larger share of the market over the forecast period. Smart Turn, a WMS vendor, was among the first companies to promote this model. Several suppliers have provided their software as a service to get a foothold in the market. The impact of this factor was notable in 2015, and is expected to increase over the forecast period.